Verstappen Hopes Flexi-Clampdown Helps Red Bull

Red Bull figures hope the team’s return to form gets back on track this weekend in Barcelona.

Team advisor Dr Helmut Marko headed to Monaco full of confidence, given the success of the upgrade package at Imola just days earlier.

After Sunday in Monaco, he admitted: “I was wrong.”

Max Verstappen started and finished P4, reporting afterwards that his car felt “slower than last year” on the twisty streets of Monaco.

He admitted, however, that Monaco is somewhat of a bogey circuit for the DNA of Red Bull’s recent single-seaters, and hopes that Barcelona this weekend will be better.

When asked if the car naturally suits the Spanish layout better, the quadruple world champion said: “Generally speaking yes, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

What might make a significant difference are the new and much stricter rules against flexible front wings that debut in Barcelona, with many seeing the dominant McLaren team as the one most severely affected.

“I hope it makes a tiny bit of difference,” Verstappen said. “But I don’t think it will turn the world upside down.

“If it comes our way a little bit, then I think that’s positive, but we’ll see.”

Team boss Christian Horner said that every single team will need to make front wing tweaks to satisfy the new rules. “How it will affect individual teams is impossible to predict, but the front wing is a very important part of the car.

“Perhaps something unusual will happen,” he added. “For us, everything is still wide open. Hopefully we can pick up the momentum from last weekend in Imola.

“Max is 25 points behind Oscar (Piastri). That’s one win, and there are still 16 races to go.”

Red Bull’s rivals are also unsure if the new front wings will affect the pecking order.

“It will have a certain influence,” said Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. “It has an influence on the balance, for sure.

“But I don’t expect it to be a big difference.”

Hamilton’s team boss Frederic Vasseur added: “It’s always about comparison, not just pure performance. The field is very close together.

“We were a tenth behind pole here, and the cars behind us were only six-hundredths behind, so if you change the car’s potential by one or two tenths, that’s huge.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff commented: “It will be very interesting to see if anything has changed, if anyone is falling back or getting stronger.

“We have to use a different front wing, which is a bit stiffer. We’ll see what it actually changes.”